A Guide to Writing Fanfiction
by Sanity'sRival
Summary: A guide to the clichés of fanfiction, Mary Sues and what to NEVER do while writing Yu Yu Hakusho fanfiction. (OC based)
1. Introduction

**Introduction: So, You Wanna Write Fanfiction? **

**Credits: this was created with the help of one of my friends who's very familiar with the Yu Yu Hakusho fandom and fanfiction in general, thank you Callie ;) **

**So, on with an introduction. **

I am a pro by no means, my word is not law and neither is Callie's. Hell, I have never even finished writing more than two chapters in a Yu Yu Hakusho fanfiction, because frankly, I don't enjoy writing fanfiction. However, both of us have read a lot of it. The good and the really, really, really bad. Feel free to flame if you don't agree, but it would be nice if you would argue your point.

Okay, so now let's get into things. So, your a fan of Yu Yu Hakusho and you probably have a favorite character in which you plan on focusing a story around, right? An OC you plan on pairing with said favorite character? This might be your very first fic or you might not have any idea on what you want for a plot and how to create your OC. Well, you have come to the right place, me and Callie have spent way too much time picking through fanfiction, reviewing it and chatting about it.

The result being that we have managed to compile a lot of information on these things; the clichés, Mary Sues and things that should under no circumstance ever be done.

And we have decided to share EVERYTHING that we have learned with you, in hopes that it will help you with your story.

So you wanna write some fanfiction?

**Next up: Getting Started**


	2. Chapter One: Getting Started

**CHAPTER ONE: Getting Started **

**So this first chapter is basically for those of you who are planning on writing a story and the beginners that just want a run down of the basics; summaries, etc**.

**First things first...**

**You're writing... what again?**

Know what you're writing. Check your facts, get it right.

It's Quidditch not Quittage.

It's one thing to be unable to correctly write in a canon character and another to be unable to keep your OC in character. OOC is not cool. If you recognize it, work on it. If you don't, well, it really sucks to be your readers.

People may enjoy reading these stories. However you will lose readers. That I can promise you. I will warn you now that if you write a story like this you will have both praise and flames.

Now, you can have watched every episode of the anime and read every chapter of the manga and still make these mistakes. I'm going to assume that most of us have not read or watched Yu Yu Hakusho enough times to know everything about the story and characters inside out. Neither did I when I first started reading fanfiction here, actually I ended up learning a lot from fan fiction itself.

There is actually a very simple way on fixing this and that is: Wikipedia. Whenever I'm about to write a story I actually keep the wikia tab up so that whenever I need info on something I just search it up.

If you don't know what wikia is, you have been living under a rock.

Here's the link to the Yu Yu Hakusho Wiki: wiki/YuYu_Hakusho_Wiki

Here you can find any info you might need while writing your fic, be it a characters hight or an explanation of a certain plot line.

**Creating a Plot **

Now, most people before having decided that they wanted to make a fic have a plot in line, but this is not always the case. Sometimes creating a plot is one of the hardest things, well not 'creating a plot' in general, but 'creating a good plot'.

So, you have created your kick-ass OC, drawn pictures of he/she and decided exactly who you want to pair them with now all you ne-

No. No. No. No. Just no. This is not how quality plots are made. NEVER MAKE YOUR OC BEFORE YOU HAVE MADE A PLOT. You can, but it complicates everything. Because then you have to form a plot around your OC and this limits you way too much.

Why does it limit your plot? Well it's not so much the appearance that limits your plot, but here I will give you an example.

So you have this character, she's a small girl with very long dark hair and glowing green eyes. What about her personality? Well based on her long hair she's probably shy, maybe a tsundere or a stoic know it all. Since your OC will be driving your plot you have already limited yourself.

Now, lets say your story is a romance, what characters will your OC naturally get along with? If she's a stoic it would probably be someone like Touya, maybe Kurama and if your a Hiei fangirl, Hiei.

Wait...but you were planning on pairing your OC with Yusuke. Not only will this be hard, but actually rather annoying.

Now do you see it? You have your characters personality and preferred people, but you have pigeonholed yourself into a plot line. One that your not very fond of.

**So, What Should I Start With? **

Choosing what kind of fic you want to write. Now, I'm writing this for those of you that just love OCs *cough* self-insert *cough* I'm sorry this is not always true, but I will talk about this later.

1. The Extremely Popular OC X Canon

These are generally the worst, but when I find a good one I actually quite enjoy them.

However, if you really think you have the imagination to pair your OC with a canon character, there is no reason you can't.

2. The OC Insert

She here you basically take the Yu Yu Hakusho timeline, point at a random arch and shove your OC in. This one is one of the hardest OC fics to write, there is just so much that can go wrong.

3. The Sucked In Fic

This is a classic. I actually kind of hate these, I have read around one good one in my entire life. They generally take very, very, very little creativity. It's seems like every Otaku's dream is to be sucked into their favorite anime's world where they then fuck around with the plot line and cause havoc.

4. The Multiple OC Fic

These are the ones where the reader never remembers everyone's names and often enough every OC is paired with a different canon character. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't.

This one also often gets paired with number three. Where you and all your best frie- I mean a bunch of OC's get pulled into a different world and fuck around even more with the plotline and cause even more havoc.

5. The Troll Fic

I have nothin to say other than read 'My Immortal' in the Harry Potter archive.

6. The High School AU + an OC

Very few people have managed to pull this off. The High School AU is so over used that adding an OC often makes it terrible.

So, do you know what you want to try?

**Summaries**

Summaries are one of the most important things in a story. It's the first thing readers look at and if it's not interesting you will not get many viewers. Don't get me wrong, people can have great stories and not get the attention they deserve all because of their summary. I'm not the best at witting them, but I try my best.

'Better than it sounds' means it is not better than it sounds.

'Please give it a try' occasionally accompanied by 'first fanfic!' means the author knows it's really not great and is looking for pity.

Any excuse such as 'I suck a summaries' is not an excuse. If you can write a story you can write two sentences about that story.

If the summary does not have proper spelin, caPitaliZatiOn, and pu, !n the story will not either.

These are all story turn offs.

Good ideas for making your summary better are making it a quote or piece of dialogue in an important part in the story. Even if you haven't gotten there yet. Sometimes even an important paragraph (that's what I did). A paragraph that highlights your plot point or just something that seems important. The plus of using a paragraph is the reader gets to see how good your writing is.

It is also extremely important to put your pairing. A lot of people have a certain pairing they prefer or character they like paired with your OC. If your summary has mention of that you will attract the attention of more readers. I know as a fact that a lot of people only read fics with a certain pairing in them. Some will completely ignore your fic if you don't make something like this known.

**Next Up: Mary Sues and How to Avoid Them**


	3. Chapter Two: Mary Sues

Chapter Two: Mary Sues and How to Avoid Them.

Mary Sues are possibly the most over-used and terrible fanfiction technique. I am one to admit that the world does need them _occasionally,_ but PLEASE try and make your original characters original.

If you don't know what a Mary Sue is, it's basically a character (most often OC) that is 'perfect'. There are several types of Mary Sues, but I will talk about those at the end of this chapter.

First thing is do NOT write yourself into the story. Do NOT write your friends into the story. You may do this, if you really want however a majority of these so called "self inserts" are not actually rwalistic and become a Mary Sue. If you chose to do this make sure your being honest with yourself. Don't make the "self insert" an amazing runner if you are not. Also if you do this DO NOT tell the readers! in any way, shape or form!

Always keep in mind what a Mary Sue is while writing, this will help you avoid having to find out you have a Mary Sue later.

Don't forget about the less popular, but equally horrible Gary Stu!

**Possible Traits of a Mary Sue **

1. She is somehow way more talented than all of the canon characters.

She manages to beat characters at their own game. If your character is skilled with a bow she should not be able to beat Hiei in a sword fight!

Elemental abilities have an extremely high tendency to do this, however seeing as this is a Yu Yu Hakusho a max one element is forgivable. Seeing as many characters actually control certain elements.

Another thing is when characters have inexplicable and/or poorly defined abilities in general, especially if they play no factor in the plot after their introduction (not even as a Required Secondary Power) and are only there to make the character seem even more awesome.

On the subject of learning. You DON'T need to learn. Just magically pull talents out of nowhere. Like being a great sniper out of the blue, or a wicked guitarist in 5 seconds. Because your OC had the magical talent of pulling talents and knowledge out of her ass. (Note the sarcasm in this one folks)

Fix:

This is simple; give your character flaws and weaknesses. Maybe she's strong against some enemies and weak against others. Clumsiness is a popular flaw but it never shows up beyond tripping a Sue into her lover's arms - it is never inconvenient, and only ever embarrassing in a cute way. Don't use it, unless you don't create this terrible cliché.

2. She tends to not have normal sex, but the most mind-blowingly divine sex ever, regardless of how experienced she actually is.

I'm not even going into this, sorry.

3. She is the most beautiful thing the canon characters have ever seen and the author is constantly describing her.

Here I will use an example from twilight (do note I blew this way out of proportion):

Edward has beautiful amber eyes, they are gorgeous. His amber eyes are so dreamy. Did I mention that he has amber eyes? It was subtle you might not have gotten it.

She is so gorgeous, with perfect curves that people on the street love to stare at her. Some even rape her. Often the canon love interest will get jealous and become really possessive.

(Sarcasm) Only regular people actually need make-up. Your character should only wear it to accent his or hers already lovely skin. Caked on eyeliner is totally cool. No one will say you look like a raccoon, I swear...

(Even more sarcasm) people can have 0% body fat. In fact, they don't weigh anymore than 120 pounds. Of course, no matter how thin you are, remember you're always super strong. What's that you say? Muscles have mass too? Not in a Sue they don't!

Fix: She can be gorgeous if you want her to be, but don't describe her very often and don't have all the characters goggling over her. Often when people make this gorgeous OC, they hope to impress the love interest. When in some cases the canon character of choice doesn't care about looks, in this case Hiei would be a good example. He wouldn't actually care what your OC looks at.

4. (Sarcasm, so much sarcasm) having more than four species in your bloodline is fine. They don't even have to make sense. Who is going to question a girl who is part vampire, part unicorn, or part mermaid? Especially one who has 4.67 bodies. Because she can't die! unless you kill her 4.67 times!

Being a cross-breed is a sue trait in most fandoms, seeing as this is Yu Yu Hakusho making her demon/Human, water/ice demon etc. can work.

If you do decide to do this maybe she has all the weakness of a certain species, but none of the strengths.

6. She makes other canon characters OOC.

Your character is somehow so great that she makes others characters act differently. This is something that is most often done with Hiei, yes Hiei is a hard character to write, but this is no excuse. He should not be goggling over her beauty or calling her by a name followed by '-chan'

7. She has a terrible past. Maybe she was abused or lost her parents when she was very young, or grew up in poverty and nobody ever liked her.

When your character has a painfully angst filed past and all she ever uses it for is pity from the canon characters, your OC might be a Mary Sue. A lot of the time the writer uses this to push characters together.

Again this is used a lot for Hiei. People want to give Hiei someone to relate to, even if it means having a pity party for their character. Hiei has a bad past, but he doesn't walk around looking for sympathy.

**Types of Mary Sues**

The Perfect Sue: this one is, well, perfect! She is incredibly smart, incredibly beautiful, incredibly strong and is pretty much better than everyone. Yet, everyone loves her!

The Copy sue: This is the one where the writer is too lazy to make their own character and basically takes a canon character by the scruff of the neck and completely rips of his/her personality and sometime even appearance. This happens most often with the love interest.

The Anti-Sue: This is, quite obviously the complete opposite of a Mary Sue. This character is probably not good at anything and probably has nothing good going for her. She needs help with everything.

The Badass Sue: She is a rebel that hates everything about society and has a terrible attitude. She's ruff looking with scars and tattoos and probably dresses "emo" style.

Angsty Sue: This is the one with a terrible past, she hates her life and looks for pity from everybody.

The Damsel in Distress: This is the one that's wimpy and always needs her love interest to swoop in and save her.

The 'Bipolar' Sue: This is the one that doesn't make any sense and the author often says "she's bipolar" as an excuse. When the fact of the matter is they have no idea what bipolar disorder actually is. This character is quite, but always yelling and one minute she's calm and the next she's the complete opposite.

**Next Up: Creating Your Character**


	4. Chapter Three: Creating Your Character

Chapter Three: Creating Your Character

So, a great idea would be to get to know your OC before writing your story. As much as keeping canon characters in charter is important it is also very important to keep your OC in character.

Writing your character off as bipolar is never a good idea. Especially if you don't actually know what bipolar disorder is. A lot of people who write stories claiming their character is bipolar, simply have a character who's mood and/or personality is always changing.

Not only does this annoy people who know what it's like to have bipolar disorder, it also gives your readers a false idea as to what bipolar disorder is.

Bipolar disorder is a serious thing, it falls in with depression, schizophrenia, Schizoaffective disorder and the likes. Bipolar disorder is a mental illness classified as a mood disorder. People with bipolar disorder experience frenzies of both depression and mania. However, unlike what a lot of people think the switch between the two does not happen within minutes. Both parts can last months. Mania is pretty much the opposite of depression, the individual experiencing it will be energetic, excitable, and may be highly productive. When mania becomes more severe, individuals begin to behave erratically and impulsively, often making poor decisions due to unrealistic ideas about the future, and may have great difficulty with sleep. Some people even experience hallucinations and delusions.

Do you get it yet? Bipolar disorder is a serious illness, some people spend their lives in mental institutions because of it.

Now, that that has been cleared up, what are some other things you should avoid while creating a character?

Depth is something you can't get away with ignoring.

I find that in quite a lot of Yu Yu Hakusho fanfiction people just watch the male character they plan to pair their OC with, ask to join, and then totally rip off their persona.

This is very often done with Hiei X OC and it's one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Pairing Hiei with anyone is very hard to write, but I'm positive that guys don't dig female versions of themselves. It is hard to find a personality that fits well with Hiei, but if you're writing a Hiei romance you need to at least be creative enough not to do this. Another thing people often do when writing this is make their OC way better than the character they are ripping off. Even if it's his job.

So back to what I said earlier, you need to get to know your character. The best way to do this is fill out a character template. Here I have given you the one that I always use, I made most of it, but I also got quite a few ideas from other people, so credit to them.

Name:

Pronunciation:

Meaning of name:

Other names: (nicknames)

Age:

Date of birth:

Place of birth:

Zodiac:

Blood Type:

Date of death:

Age of death:

Reason of death:

Location of death:

Physical appearance

Race:

Nationality:

Skin tone:

Height:

Weight:

Hair color/length/style/type:

Birthmarks:

Other notable features:

Parents:

Other notable family members:

Hometown:

Past:

Best Friend and why:

Other Friends:

Enemies and why:

Love interest and why:

Earliest Memory:

Fondest Memory:

Worst Memory:

Favorite Dream:

Worst Nightmare:

Ambitions and why:

Dominant personality trait:

Seconday personality trait:

Other personality traits:

On a scale of one to ten (should be more than 20 added up)

Beauty-

Intelligence-

Fighting ability-

Sees self as:

Sees others as:

Likes:

Dislikes:

Hobbies:

Good at:

Bad at:

Habits (good and bad):

Quotes or things he/she says often:

Catchphrase:

Dominant Hand: (Are they right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous?)

Known Languages:

Anima: (How does your character act when they are really being their self?)

Persona: (How does your character act to hide their real self?)

Lures: (What is your character drawn to?)

Manias: (What is your character obsessed with? Pyromania, for example.)

Memory:(How well do they remember things?)

Phobias:

Savvies: (What are they very familiar with and/or very good at doing?)

Ineptities: (What are they simply unable to understand?)

Temperament: (Is your character choleric, sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic, phlegmatic II, or supine/leukine? Wikipedia and TVTropes have great articles on this.)

Communication: (How does your character communicate with other people?)

Criminal Record: (What has your character done to break the law? Arson? Murder? Jaywalking?)

Discriminations: (What kind of stuff or people does your character discriminate against? Blacks? Aliens? Broccoli?)

Dominance: (How firmly does your character stand their ground over others? Extra firm? Submissively? Iron-fistedly?)

Ego: (How downright amazing does your character think they are? Ridiculously centric? In the wrong place? Superfluous?)

Emotional Stability: (How much emotional inflictions can your character take before they break? Lots? None at all? Negative amounts?)

Expression: (How does your character express themself? Through the clothes? By just saying it? By the pattern in which they play the harmonica?)

Humor: (What does your character think is funny? Blond jokes? Death? Farting?)

Liveliness: (How energetic is your character? Do they literally bounce off the walls? Do they do only what they have to do? Do they literally sleep for entire days?)

Mannerisms: (How does your character commonly act? Rude? Well-mannered? Creepy?)

Patience: (How long can your character wait for something or endure something that is annoying or stressful? Very patient? Impatient? Passive?)

Reputation:

Sociability: (How much does your character like to interact with other people? Is he super social? Is he a loner? Does he only like being around people who take a liking to the research behind the flight pattern of the sparrow?)

Status: (What is their social status? Quiet? Popular? Dead?)

I guess that's pretty long, but don't worry about filling it all out. You can find other templates like this on Google.


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